La Perla is a small working-class barrio of brightly painted houses crammed onto the steep slope between the seaward walls of Old San Juan and the rocky Atlantic shore. It grew up in the nineteenth century as the place where slaughterhouses and the unwanted urban functions were pushed outside the city walls; for most of the twentieth century it was a place outsiders did not go.
In the past decade La Perla has reinvented itself slightly — there are a couple of small bars, a beach club at the eastern end, and visitors with cameras. It is fine to visit during the day, take the stairs down from the cemetery side, walk the seafront path, have a beer at La Garita, and head back. Do not bring valuables, and do not photograph people without asking.